The Daily Start-Up: Damballa Locks Down $15M Series E to Fight Cyberattacks

Damballa has raised a $15 million Series E round led by Adams Street Partners, with several current investors participating, to help it detect criminal activity on corporate and government networks. The company was approached by a wide range of investors, according to Damballa Chief Executive Val Rahmani, including private equity firms that are looking for a way to get into the security market. Damballa has now raised $44.5 million.

Audi is partnering with Joule Unlimited to try to create ethanol and diesel without the use of food such as corn or sugar. The deal helps Bedford, Mass.-based Joule, a start-up that has claimed radically better results than the rest of the bio-based fuel space, gain additional validation. It also shows that the industry is still pursuing alternatives to petroleum and food-based fuels, even as some other technology providers have recently shifted away from pursuing the fuel market.

Also in today’s VentureWire, Foundry Group announced the close of its third fund, aiming to stay the course investing in seed and early-stage companies in the U.S. At $225 million, Foundry Venture Capital 2012 LP is the same size as its predecessor fund closed in October 2010 and will focus on similar software and IT themes…Jason Matlof left his position as partner at Battery Ventures a week ago, as the firm slows down its investments in clean-technology. Battery, based in Waltham, Mass., with an office in Menlo Park, Calif., is one of several U.S. venture firms that moved into clean-tech in the mid-2000s only to step back in the last year or so…and Lerer Ventures has started raising its third venture fund. The firm, a New York-based seed-stage investor, has set out to raise $30 million for Lerer Ventures III LP, according to a regulatory filing.

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